


Those Who Mourn the Wicked

by Luspiel



Series: Harry Potter and Jazz [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Lily Evans Potter is a Good Friend, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Minor Character Death, One Shot, Remus is still doing his secret spy stuff, Sad Sirius Black, Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, Sirius and Lily are emotional support buddies, fight me on this, not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24544468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luspiel/pseuds/Luspiel
Summary: Magic was a complicated and wonderful thing. On several occasions it has been known to not only bend the rules of physics but outright break them, and in more dubious cases it had even gone head to head with the laws of nature as well. On one such night a certain Lily Potter fervently claims that it had rained indoors. This response, however, was only solicited upon asking Mrs. Potter a specific set of questions on what exactly took place on her front porch, February 23rd 1979, after a group of friends met at the Potter home for pleasant conversation and drink. Other responses include: “None of your business,” “Don’t you have work to be doing,” and “So help me, James, if you don’t go away!”
Relationships: (background) James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Regulus Black & Sirius Black, Sirius Black & Lily Evans Potter
Series: Harry Potter and Jazz [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591132
Kudos: 12





	Those Who Mourn the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> “No hope for those who mourn the wicked, for the boys of yesteryears, for the last one standing alone.”  
> \- Quote by Luspiel

It was a blackhead on the face of a blue sky, and it was enlarging at alarming speeds. This blackhead was not only the scourge of teenage girls everywhere but also of one Sirius Black. The grey eyed man had been standing transfixed in the light of his kitchen window watching that single dot grow bigger and bigger for three minutes now. 

It was an owl. In his head he knew this, but that still didn’t stop him from staring up at it like he was watching a missile head approach slowly. And it might as well have been. The Order didn’t communicate using owls and Sirius’s friends had long switched to muggle post to avoid tracking. There were only a few groups of people who would spend time finding out where his flat was with the intention of communicating with him, and none of those groups held savory characters. 

The owl was black with grey feathers strewn all about. It was large and regal and not belonging to the Black family. Sirius breathed a sigh of relief for small mercies. Still he handled the letter it carried carefully, checking it over for any benign curses or jinxes. Yes, death eaters really could be that petty. Having found nothing suspicious save for the letter itself he shooed the bird away without so much as a crumb or Knut. Common courtesy be screwed. 

He undid the creases of the letter to get a better look at its ignominious contents stopping short at the signature. Rosier. What was a suspected death eater doing sending him mail, and a pureblood at that? Sirius shook off his confusion and skimmed the contents. Stopped breathing. Then read through again, this time much, much slower.  
.  
.  
.  
Black:  
  
Your brother Regulus Arcturus Black has been officially declared missing. The accepted waiting time will be observed before going forward with the funeral preparations. It will be held two weeks from this very day at 12 noon next to the Black Mausoleum.  
  
Evan Rosier  
.  
.  
.  
Regulus has been declared “missing.” His brother was missing. Perhaps the word may have been a small comfort to others, but in this wartime the original meaning is lost and might as well spell out death. Regulus was dead. 

The words took their time sinking into his skull, then his brain, being absorbed into his blood stream, puncturing his heart, and electrifying every single nerve in his body. His brother was dead. The last of his true family—gone. He hadn’t talked to him in almost two years, and now he never would because _his brother was dead._

Sirius fumbled over to the sink and gulped down tap water because everything was dry and on fire and, oh God, he was drowning. His brother had died a death eater, and he was drowning in grief.

——

“Hey, do you have any idea what’s been up with Sirius? He looks like hell, but like he’s happy to be there.”

“How should I know, you live in the same flat as the bloke!” James angrily filled up the snack bowl with chips and hoped they weren’t all crushed yet. 

Remus had been gone again, and this time he hadn’t returned for a month. James had the uneasy feeling that one of these days the man wouldn’t return, and they would never get an explanation as to why. 

“I—I’ve had a lot of work on my mind, but it’s obvious even to me whose been gone for so long to see that he’s definitely not okay.” Remus observed the black haired from the safety of James and Lily’s kitchen. Sirius was dancing with Marlene, but he wasn’t smiling no matter how much the woman teased and joked with him, and Sirius loved Marlene’s jokes. 

“He’s been like that for a while now.” James and Remus snapped their heads to attention as Lily appeared in front of them like a ginger ninja. “He wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong, but I figured I could hazard a guess,” she said throwing the Daily Prophet onto the counter. 

There on the front page was the younger Black brother and a headline proclaiming the date of his funeral. Apparently, the event will be heavily warded and featured an empty casket. Remus sucked in a breath, James cursed, and Lily carried a cooler of beers out to the living room. 

——

Sirius was getting by on coffee fumes and carefully constructed white lies. Lying by technicality as Moony liked to call it. “He was fine.” (Physically that is.) “Yes, I saw the paper.” (He had burned it without reading it though.) “I’m not apart of that family anymore.” (Not apart of it because there’s nothing left of it anymore.)

He knew it was obvious to everyone that had known him for any period of time at all that he was not okay. He knew, but he didn’t care. Lots of people had lost family in the war. Lots of people had lost good, honest people. His brother was a death eater, why should he care whether he lives or not? 

But he did. Sirius did care, and he was ashamed.

——

“Sirius?”  
“Sirius!”

“Hmm,” the man grunted.

“Come on, you’re going dead weight on me. I’m gonna have to let you go.” Marlene smiled as she spoke, and it did nothing to mask the worry on her face.

“‘Kay, sorry, Marls. I’m gonna go grab a beer.” 

Sirius walked over to the fresh cooler Lily was setting down. He wasn’t in the mood to talk or banter as usual, but she still looked at him and opened her mouth and spoke. Good grief.

“Black.”

“Potter.”

“You sound almost like Severus.”

Ignoring her statement, Sirius reached for a beer, but his hand stopped short. Huh, he seemed to remember his arms being longer than that. He lifted up his other arm and it also stopped short. “Lily, my arms have shrunken.”

“Merlin, it’s worse than I thought,” she laughed. She lifted up her hand which was holding his right arm rock solid. How did that get there? “I have something better than beer.”

“Oh.” Frankly, Sirius was still on the shrunken arms bit, but he wouldn’t leave her hanging.

“Yep, and I was going to enjoy it all on my lonesome, but you look like you could use a little liquid courage.” Lily let go of his arms (thank God, they’re back to normal), and brandished her knock-off Felix Felicis before pulling him out into the cold of the Potters’ porch. 

She tossed a fluffy pink blanket over their laps (where did she get that?) and sits them down on a deceivingly comfy looking bench. She presses a bottle of bourbon into his hands and Sirius obligingly drinks. They pass the bottle between themselves for a good half hour, mentally and physically preparing themselves for the conversation ahead. 

Just when Lily was starting to feel pleasantly tingly, Sirius broke the ice, “It’s not fire whiskey, but those Americans make some good stuff.”

Lily and Sirius just talk. They talk about growing up—before the war. Before Houses. Before Hogwarts. They talk about siblings. How annoying they can be. What the differences were between being the youngest and being the oldest. How you had to be a master at talking with tone because sometimes jokes spin out of control. They briefly talk about Lily’s parents. Severus even makes it in there, and Sirius isn’t too disparaging about it.

“Yep, and Tuney sat all alone at the wedding. I’m surprised you didn’t see her glaring at you and everyone else. Still….I’m glad she came.”

Sirius’s chuckles taper off into nothing as the night makes a turn for day. The sound of the party inside seemed to dampen as people became either too drunk or too knackered to coherently make a ruckus. The cold breeze bit at his face having only the fuzzy pink blanket and alcohol in his veins to keep him warm. Sirius let it give him courage.

“This is probably good for me.” Lily made no move to fill the silence he had purposefully left. “At least now, there’s nobody in the world left connecting me to that name. Not truly at least. Now I’m free, I suppose,” he licks his lips and takes a swig of the bourbon, drinking directly from the bottle as per usual. Sirius liked to think of himself as classy.

“Still, I—I don’t know why I feel so much. We haven’t had a proper conversation in years, and he was a Death Eater for crying out loud! But none of that seems to matter...” 

Lily didn’t put the words in his mouth just smiled ruefully in commiseration as they formed on their own. “Because I love him—or loved him, I guess.” 

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my supposedly ‘trash’ records,” his lips turn up ever so slightly at her fleeting scowl, “it’s that love goes on. It goes on whether there’s someone to receive it or not, just as long as someone is willing to give it.” 

She pries the bottle from Sirius’s hands and takes her own deep drink of it. He whistles lowly and her sheepish look is emphasized by the red of her cheeks. “It’s the same way with my sister and I. There will always be differences, but I think I can understand where you’re coming from. Tuney and I haven’t had honest to goodness communication in so long, but if she said she needed me right now I’d drop everything and go.” 

She looked over at Sirius whose expression could only be defined as captivated. Perhaps it was because none of his friends had siblings and therefore could never so comprehensively understand what it meant to have a brother or sister, or maybe it was simply for a different reason entirely. Whatever it was, Lily wasn’t privy to it and as such fumbled for a response to the staring. 

“Well, maybe not right this second, I mean I’d probably finish this conversation...” He kept on just staring at her, “I’m sorry,” she muttered into the her drink. 

“Don’t be,” he says with a strange sort of conviction. “Don’t be sorry. You can be all the emotions known to man, but don’t be sorry.”

James had taught him that. Never be ashamed of being loyal. But Lily had been the one to teach him to think about who he was loyal to and why. So many life lessons they’ve learnt through osmosis on their brief journey into adulthood. They had crafted this support system with shaky adolescent hands, which Lily had been later welcomed into. For a moment in 5th year, it had seemed that Sirius would be the one to destroy his own safe haven, but it wasn’t so. Remus had still been willing to give his love, and that’s all that had been needed just as Lily said. 

“Life is a jerkface,” Lily slurred. Then, Lily smiled and Sirius returned it in kind. 

“And siblings suck!”

Lily’s smile grew wider, “Here, here!” And the two unceremoniously high-fived before collapsing into a fit of giggles. Once they had regained some level of composure, they proceeded to stack themselves accordingly: Lily rested her head against Sirius’s shoulder and he followed suit, resting against her auburn head. 

An hour or so passed or was it 2? Perhaps the whole night had faded away to the pair before Lily felt wet droplets repeatedly landing on her head creating a patch of moisture. But, the front porch was covered by the cottage roof. “Raining indoors?” 

“No,” his voice was soft and whispered, “no, not rain.”

**Author's Note:**

> So far I've written two Harry Potter fics about death. I wonder what that says about me. Anyway, this has been in the works for a while, and I guess it's technically the first published piece in the Rabbit Boy series.


End file.
